NERSC User News

NERSC Director Sudip Dosanjh discusses the highlights of 2020 at NERSC, as well as what to look forward to in 2021 and beyond.

In this interview with NERSC HPC Consultant Steve Leak, learn about the new NERSC software support policy: what it is, how it works, and its benefits for users and NERSC staff alike.

In this interview with Berkeley Lab Infrastructure Modernization Division's David Topete, learn about the power upgrade happening this weekend, the work that has to be done, and the steps taken to ensure the safety of the workers involved in the effort.

In this interview with NERSC Building Infrastructure Group's Norm Bourassa, learn about how NERSC is saving energy with the dynamic fan setting on the Cori supercomputing cabinets, and what we are doing to make the cabinets even more energy efficient.

In this interview with NERSC Application Performance Specialist Kevin Gott, learn about the upcoming GPU Hackathon sponsored by NERSC: what it's for, the format of the event, and how to apply.

In this interview with NVIDIA RAPIDS senior engineer Nick Becker, learn about the RAPIDS library, how it can accelerate your data science, and how to use it.

In this interview with NERSC HPC Systems Engineer Chris Samuel, learn all about Slurm: the life cycle of a job submitted to the batch queue, how Slurm decides which jobs should run when, and tips and tricks on making Slurm work for you.

In this interview with NERSC Principal Data Architect Quincey Koziol, learn about IO middleware: what it is, how you can benefit from using it in your code, and how it is evolving to support data-intensive computing and future supercomputing architectures.

NERSC Director Sudip Dosanjh discusses the highlights of 2019 at NERSC, as well as what to look forward to in 2020 and beyond.

In this interview with NERSC Storage Systems Group's Kristy Kallback-Rose, Greg Butler, and Ravi Cheema, learn all about the new Community File System (CFS): why we're introducing it, how your data will be migrated to it, and advice for using it!

In this interview with NERSC Application Performance Specialist Brian Friesen, learn about the Luis W. Alvarez and Grace M. Hopper Postdoctoral Fellowships: what they are, how to apply, and how the Hopper fellowship compares with the NERSC NESAP postdoctoral positions.

In this episode we introduce the new IRIS allocation banking and identity and access management system that NERSC has developed to replace NIM. Learn from NERSC Infrastructure Services Group's Gabor Torok and Mark Day about how the system was built, the improvements over NIM, and its upcoming rollout in December!

In this interview with NERSC Computational Systems Group's Eric Roman, learn about how NERSC is monitoring the performance of our systems, what we're doing with that data, and how we plan to use it in the future.

In this interview with NERSC Data Science Engagement Group Lead Debbie Bard, learn about the superfacility concept: what it means, how facilities interact, and what NERSC and partner experimental facilities are doing to prepare for the future of data-intensive science.

In this interview with NERSC HPC Data Analytics Engineer Jialin Liu, learn about a case study on I/O optimization, in which the team took the Etalumis learning application from spending 75% of its time on I/O down to spending only 5% of its time on I/O.

Learn about ERCAP, the allocation request process for NERSC, which opens today (August 12), in this interview with NERSC allocations and account support specialist Clayton Bagwell.

In this interview with NERSC Application Performance Specialist Charlene Yang, learn about the roofline model for application performance: what it is and how it works, how to use it to improve your application's performance, and future directions in roofline model research.

In this interview with Appentra Solutions CEO and co-founder Manuel Arenaz, learn about the Appentra Parallelware Trainer tool: how it can help you learn to code with OpenMP and OpenACC, the features of the tool, and how to use it on Cori.

In this interview with NERSC Building Infrastructure Group lead Ben Maxwell, learn about the mechanical substation work that will take NERSC offline the last weekend of July: what it's for, what work will be performed, and how NERSC plans these events.

Learn about the NERSC User Group (NUG), the upcoming NUG annual meeting (July 19, 2019 in Rockville, MD), and what NUG can do for you in this interview with NERSC HPC Department Head Richard Gerber.

Learn all about containers, how people are using them at NERSC, and how to get started with them yourself, in this interview with NERSC Data Analytics and Services Group's Shane Canon!

Learn about Jupyter at NERSC: what it is, how it works, and what people are using it for, as well as plans for the future of Jupyter at NERSC, in this interview with the NERSC Data and Analytics Services Group's Rollin Thomas.

In this interview with Cray senior principal engineer and senior manager in programming environments Heidi Poxon, learn about why you would want to profile your code, what kind of differences you might see in performance on different architectures, and hear an overview of how to use the performance tools provided by Cray that are available on Cori.

In this interview with NERSC Application Performance Group Lead Jack Deslippe, learn about NERSC's KNL Office Hours (held every Friday in May from 9 am to 3 pm Pacific): why we're holding them, what users can join in to get help with, and the advantages of porting your codes to work on the Cori KNL nodes!

In this interview with NERSC Application Performance Specialist Kevin Gott, learn about the upcoming community GPU hackathon NERSC will be hosting in July: what it's about, what happens at a hackathon, and how to apply (due date May 15)!

In this interview with NERSC HPC Consultant Zhengji Zhao, learn the detailed schedule for Edison's retirement, a little Edison history, and how NERSC is helping you get prepared for running your codes on Cori KNL with KNL Office Hours (starting this Friday and continuing through May).

In this interview with Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory HPC I/O Specialist Elsa Gonsiorowski, learn about the Productivity and Sustainability Improvement Planning (PSIP) process originating from the IDEAS productivity project, how it can work for you, and some web resources for PSIP.

In this interview with David Bernholdt, a distinguished R&D staff member and leader of the Computer Science Research group at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, learn about the IDEAS Productivity project: its goal of increasing productivity for HPC software developers, the many ways in which the project addresses this goal, and how you can get involved!

In this interview with NERSC HPC Application Specialist Brandon Cook, learn about the High-Impact Science at Scale on Cori program: what it's for, how to apply, and what to do if you aspire to run at large scale but you're not quite ready yet.

In this episode, NERSC Data and Analytics Services Group's Machine Learning Engineer Mustafa Mustafa discusses the upcoming Deep Learning for Science (DL4Sci) Summer School (https://dl4sci-school.lbl.gov/) hosted by Berkeley Lab's Computing Sciences Area (which includes NERSC). Learn what deep learning is and how it can be applied to science, as well as more information about the summer school and how to apply!

In this episode, meet NERSC Assistant Building Manager Ernie Jew, who helps make sure that the facilities at NERSC run smoothly. Find out about what his job entails, what special skills he brings to NERSC, and how he spent eight summers at Yellowstone National Park on his career path!

In this interview with NERSC HPC Systems Engineer Aditi Gaur, learn about the pros and cons of using open-source software, how to get started contributing to an open-source project, and how to make your own project open source!

In this interview with NERSC Operations Technology Group's Tom Davis, learn about why NERSC started collecting data on its machines, what sort of data NERSC collects, and how NERSC uses that data to diagnose issues on its machines and in the machine room.

In this interview with NERSC HPC Architecture and Performance Engineer Taylor Groves, find out what's happening in the HPC networks research area, how Perlmutter's network will be better than what we have today, and what you can do to get better network performance in your applications.

In this interview with Berkeley Lab's Building Technologies and Urban Systems Division principal engineering associate and building energy efficiency expert Norm Bourassa, learn about how NERSC assures that our machines are operating at peak efficiency with minimal energy overhead, including how we take advantage of the mild Berkeley climate, how we look for inefficiencies via extensive instrumentation, and what is happening on the global scale as a result of NERSC's energy efficiency efforts.

In this interview with Berkeley Lab construction project director Ben Maxwell, learn about all the facilities work to prepare for the arrival of Perlmutter. Find out how much power and cooling is being added to the machine room, how the earthquake isolation floor works, and what computer cooling and viticulture have in common!

In this interview with NERSC Systems Department Head Tina Declerck, find out what's required to go from a contract with a vendor to a supercomputer in production for users.

In this interview with NERSC Site Reliability Engineer Owen James, learn about what it's like in the Operations Control Room, what the Operations Technology Group is responsible for, and the tools they use to keep the systems up and running for you!

NERSC Director Sudip Dosanjh discusses the highlights of 2018 at NERSC, as well as what NERSC is looking forward to in the next year and beyond.

In this interview with NERSC HPC architecture and performance engineer Doug Doerfler, learn about what NERSC is doing to plan for the next NERSC machine, why performance portability is vital for code development teams who want their application to run on future Post-Moore's Law systems, and tips on making your code as performance-portable as possible.

In this episode, Application Performance Specialist Brian Friesen discusses the postdoctoral fellowships at NERSC. Find out how you can join NERSC as a postdoc, either working in the NESAP program to prepare codes for Perlmutter, or as the Grace Hopper Postdoctoral Fellow, preparing your own code for Perlmutter!

In this interview with NERSC NESAP postdoc Laurie Stephey, learn what NESAP postdocs do, how Laurie optimizes Python code for the DESI project, and what it's like to be a NESAP postdoc!

In this interview with NERSC security specialist Abe Singer, learn about NERSC's plans for Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA), discover what will happen when MFA becomes mandatory in the new allocation year, and hear answers to some frequently asked user questions about MFA.

In this interview with NERSC Application Performance Specialist Brandon Cook, learn about the NERSC Exascale Scientific Applications Program (NESAP), the benefits of participation, and how you can participate (as a code team or a recent graduate looking for a job).

In this interview with NERSC-9 project manager Jay Srinivasan and chief architect Nick Wright, learn about the new machine arriving at the end of 2020, why it was named Perlmutter, and the new features of the machine that users will especially like.

In this interview with Berkeley Lab Computational Research Division staff scientist and prolific NERSC user David Trebotich, learn what all those big jobs of his are for, what makes running at full-machine scale challenging, and pick up some tips from David on how to run at scale at NERSC!

In this interview with NERSC Security Engineer Craig Lant, learn about how NERSC keeps our machines safe, the unique security challenges in high-performance computing, and an exciting opportunity to join our team!

In this interview with Division Deputy and Data Department Head Katie Antypas, learn about what a superfacility is, how NERSC is helping users from experimental facilities to analyze their data, and what challenges lie ahead!

Learn about the various filesystems available at NERSC, which filesystem to use when, and how HPSS accounting works in this interview with NERSC HPC Data Consultant Lisa Gerhardt.

In this interview with NERSC Application Performance Specialist Brian Friesen, learn what PGAS means, how using a PGAS programming model could benefit you, and how to get started with PGAS.

In this interview, NERSC Allocations and Account Support specialist Clayton Bagwell discusses the ERCAP process. Learn what ERCAP stands for, find out the latest developments in the ERCAP system, and how to get help if you're struggling with your ERCAP submissions.